IN BRIEF
IN MEMORY OF NICOLÒ D’AMICO (1953 – 2020) BY ANDREA POSSENTI (INAF) The completely unexpected and sudden death of Prof. Nicolò D’Amico (Palermo 1953 – Soleminis 2020), President of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), has been an irreparable loss for the Italian astrophysics community and beyond, and left a huge void in all the many people who, like me, had the privilege to work with him. During the years of his Presidency, Prof. D’Amico fully exploited his natural aptitude to synthesise all the received suggestions into a precise vision for the development of astrophysics: to maximise the quality of the research, and to make that a flywheel of growth, while paying special attention to education, outreach activities and science communication. He was the voting member for Italy in the SKA Board of Directors, and thanks to his remarkable managerial capabilities, coupled with an always crystal-clear and sound approach to the world of the institutions, he was the main actor in securing the long-term Italian funding for the project and in promoting SKA. Graduating in Physics in 1977, only four years later Prof. D’Amico, known as “Nichi”, was already “permanent” at the University of Palermo. After beginning with gamma-ray astronomy, a visit to CSIRO in Australia re-oriented his studies towards radio pulsars, the apex of which was reached with
his key role in the Parkes Multibeam surveys (19982004), which doubled the number of catalogued pulsars and led to the discovery of the still unique double pulsar PSR J0737−3039. That made him one of the recipients of the prestigious “Descartes Prize” for outstanding European scientific collaborations in 2005, among other prizes. Prof. D’Amico meanwhile obtained a full professorship at the University of Cagliari and became director of the local Astronomical Observatory and, later, director of the project for the construction of the Sardinia Radio Telescope. In autumn 2015, he was nominated President of INAF, and he was confirmed for a second term in December 2019, the first president to be reconfirmed in the history of this prestigious Italian institution. Above: Prof. Nichi D’amico during the second SKA IGO Negotiations meeting in January 2016 at the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome.
UNCOVERING THE BIRTHPLACES OF PLANETS WITH THE SKA BY HILARY KAY (THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER – UK SKA) Advancing our understanding of how habitable planets form is one of the key science drivers of the SKA telescopes. Now a team of astronomers, led by Dr John Ilee at the University of Leeds in the UK, has performed the first investigation into the capability of the SKA-Mid telescope to observe the structure of protoplanetary discs, the birthplace of planets. As planets form from the collision and coalescence of dust particles, they create structure in the disk, carving out concentric gaps at their location. Analysis of this structure can provide crucial information on the composition of the disk and the properties of the planets themselves. Dr Ilee’s team has created a model of a protoplanetary disk similar to the famous HL Tau star-disk system, which they have used to simulate the observations that will be obtained by the SKA-Mid telescope when it is fully operational. The team has confirmed that SKA-Mid will be able to detect emission from centimetre-sized pebbles, allowing them to analyse the structure created in the disk as planets form, shedding light on a crucial step in the formation of planets. As a result of its large field of view, SKA-Mid will be able to observe dozens of protoplanetary disks simultaneously, providing robust tests of planet formation. “Understanding how the raw material for planet formation behaves is essential if we are to understand how planetary systems, like our own Solar System, come into existence. SKA-Mid will allow us to observe this clearly for the first time,” Dr Ilee says. 4
Read more in our Let’s talk about... the origins of life article on pages 10 and 11.
Simulated SKA-Mid observations (Band 5b, 67 mas) of a protoplanetary disk host to three giant planets (left), with a representation of our own Solar System on the same scale (right). Credit: John D. Ilee, University of Leeds (Ilee et al. 2020, MNRAS, 498, 5116). C O N TA C T | D E C E M B E R 2 0 2 0
